New software from Oryx Digital is about to make the time consuming task of table planning a whole lot easier. PerfectTablePlan allows you to choose your table shapes and sizes and decide which guests will sit where at the click of a mouse. You can also track meal choices and print table lists and extremely professional looking table plans.

We really love the diplomatic guest list symbols which you can allocate to those who will happily sit together and those who will definitely not!

Better still, you can download a free trial version of the software (limited to a maximum of 35 guests) before taking the plunge for the full software from a bargain £19.99.

To check out the software's functions and download the trial visit the PerfectTablePlan website.

Lots of meeting madness this week hence the abundance of fluff and filler on the blog. This post is no exception but it is fun.

Check out the number one single on the day you were born!

Find out yours by clicking here.

If you're feeling brave, post your number one as a comment and we can guess your age!

Everybody's at it so here's our memes -

Nicky

Four jobs I’ve had –

McDonalds (one star)
Nightclub promoter at Paradise Factory
Podium dancer at the Hacienda
Minor appearances in daytime TV fly on the wall ‘Shopping City’

Four movies I can watch over and over –

Baz Lurhman’s Romeo and Juliet
You’ve Got Mail
Pretty In Pink
Apocalypse Now

Four TV shows I love to watch –

Emmerdale
Teachers
The Apprentice
Dragons’ Den

Four places I’ve visited on holiday –

Cornwall
Jamaica
St Lucia
Amsterdam

Four favourite dishes –

Andy’s mum’s Sunday roast
McDonalds Quarter Pounder with chips
Pizza Express baked vanilla cheesecake
Steak au poivre

Four places I’ve lived –

Liverpool
London
Salford
Summerseat

Four sites I visit regularly –

ivillage
Search engines for venues
G mail
BBC food recipe guides

Four places I’d rather be –

In a hammock on Negril beach
The beer garden on St Michaels Mount with a cream tea
Guggenheim, Bilbao
Shopping

Andy

Four jobs I’ve had –

Coach station porter
Record label PR
Tour manager
Police Press Officer

Four movies I can watch over and over –

High Hopes
If….
A Bout de Soufflé
The Harder They Come

Four TV shows I love to watch –

The news
Dragons’ Den
Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares
Teachers

Four places I’ve visited on holiday –

Cornwall
Andalucia
Parry Sound
Havana

Four favourite dishes –

Full English breakfast
Anything Chinese
KFC
Cock a leekie soup

Four places I’ve lived –

Altrincham
Muswell Hill
Salford
Summerseat

Four sites I visit regularly –

BBC
Guardian
Independent
eBay

Four places I’d rather be –

Snorkelling in the Caribbean
The top of Holcombe Hill
The Footballers Inn, Summerseat
Any record shop

I recently read in Event magazine that the University of Greenwich has launched the Greenwich Centre of Excellence for Events.

A newly formed team, headed by event department leader Jon Hopwood, is working with private training company Event Management Training to provide a range of vocational and academic event management courses for students and employees within the industry.

A forum held on 18 January, called 'The People and the Profession' discussed topics such as the skillsets required within the industry as well as the development needs of graduates.

These are certainly interesting times for event management and academia seems to be finally recognising that the profession is an attractive and viable career path.

Unfortunately after a frustrating trawl around the university's website I could find no information whatsoever on the actual courses!

On Wednesday the 15th of February we managed the 'Delivering the New PR - How blogs, RSS and podcasts can work for you' event on behalf of the University of Sunderland at Lancashire County Cricket Club, Manchester.

The venue and staff at LCCC were fantastic and we'd highly recommend them for any events you might be considering for the North West of England. The cricket ground is just to the south of the city and has substantial free car parking for delegates who choose to drive, as well as an adjacent Metrolink tram stop which provides a swift, short journey from the city's major railway stations. The venue is also only 20 minutes by cab from Manchester Airport.

There are a number of rooms available accommodating audiences of all sizes from twenty through to 300. We opted for the Members Suite which holds up to 150 however with the additional staging by the reliable and highly rated LAS boys, we seated an audience of 110 quite comfortably. The only downside we found was that the room temperature soon rose but LCCC staff quickly rectified the problem by opening a few of the patio doors for us which lead out to a balcony with an inspirational view across the ground.

Food and drinks were excellent and served punctually at three points throughout the day. There are a variety of menus to choose from however we'd recommend the danish pastries for your tea and coffee breaks and the buffet style lunch with the curly fries which proved extremely popular with delegates!

The conference itself has been blogged about quite extensively so we won't dwell on the content here however blogging, RSS and podcasting are becoming a very hot topic with public relations professionals who are quickly realising the value of these new communications tools. So much so that we're working once again with the university to take the conference down to London in May.

The following links may be useful -

Lancashire County Cricket Club website
LAS event production website

Speaker blogs -

Philip Young Mediations
Tom Murphy PR Opinions
Neville Hobson NevOn & NevilleHobson.com
Stuart Bruce A PR Guru's Musings
Elizabeth Albrycht Corporate PR

And finally, a reminder to delegates that the speaker presentations are downloadable from the conference website. There's also plenty of chat about the event and an opportunity to post your comments on the day. The site's password protected but you'll find the access details in your conference packs.

Welcome to Eventualities, a blog loosely based on the field of event management and the trials and tribulations of running a small but growing business.

We hope to use the site to share our views on the issues facing events professionals and we'd love others in the same field to use this blog as a forum for the common good of our profession.

Lofty ideals for sure, but maybe we can put the fact that it's a competitive world out there aside and help each other out once in a while.

Eventualities is written by Nicky and Andy Wake, who are in events management and PR & marketing. Our event management company is called Don't Panic and we're based in Bury, a town close to Manchester in the North West of England.

If you check out our website you'll see we've been specialising in PR & communications-based events including some on the subject of blogging and it's because of these that we've decided to take the plunge.

We hope you enjoy our blog!